On Behalf of Soviet Equestria

The train was more than three hours behind schedule. The engineers could have made the long trip to Canterlot considerably shorter if they had gone directly south from Stalliongrad, but they didn’t want to take that risk, as many of the railroad exchanges in the south were controlled by the anarchists. And had the anarchists discovered a train with diplomats loyal to the Party, those diplomats – and most probably all of the other passengers, for that matter – would likely have been held hostage or executed. It was considerably safer to first travel west to Saddlestopol, a city that was completely loyal to the Party and the Reds, and to circumvent most of the southern regions of the territory altogether.

Had that train crossed the border a few months prior, it would have been leaving from the southwestern regions of the Crystal Empire. Now, that border belonged to Soviet Equestria, the new republic that appeared in the wake of the revolution in the Equusia territory. It was a tumultuous time. Disagreement between sects of the representatives at the Party Congress brought difficult days to Stalliongrad while bands of anarchists remained in control of many southern and eastern areas of the republic. Then, of course, there were a few small groups that were still loyal to the Crystal Empire, although the Reds and anarchists alike were steadily suppressing what little royalist support remained.

It was decided that dialogue with Canterlot was needed as quickly as possible. The new state was fragile, and the Party knew it was simply a matter of time until the Empire tried to re-absorb the republic before it grew too stable. For that reason, two recently-appointed diplomats by the names of Palominov and Mareinskiy were en route to Canterlot for an audience with Princess Celestia. Though already far outside their motherland on a hot, stuffy sleeper train that chugged along through the night, they still had another half-day of travel before they reached their destination.

Palominov and Mareinskiy met several years prior during their matriculation at the Stalliongrad Academy of Law. They had joined the Reds just under a year before the revolution and had worked with prominent members of the intelligentsia to coordinate protest action across Stalliongrad. They of course were among the crowd before the palace in Sapphire Square on that celebrated day when the masses rose up against the monarchy in a final, forceful push. Naturally, they were welcomed into the Party shortly thereafter, and they were trusted to handle relations with Canterlot.

They spent hours talking on that long train ride. Some conversation was weighty, and some was idle. Palominov decided at one point in the late evening that he was ready to sleep, though his friend made the choice to stay awake for a while longer.

Palominov slept for a couple of hours, but later was jarred awake after several meters of uneven track caused the train to judder. The sleepy brown earth pony rubbed his eyes and groaned as he rolled over in his bunk. The room was even warmer now that it was when he fell asleep, and he could feel a thin coat of sweat on his brow. The light in the cabin was dim, but Palominov still had to open his eyes gradually as they adjusted. He noticed that Mareinskiy wasn’t in the room.

“Huh. Where did he go?” Palominov asked aloud after a long yawn. Shoving the blankets aside, he sat up in his bunk and looked around the room. Everything was just as it had been left when he went to sleep – the documents on the table top, his suit on its hanger by the door of the cabin, and the two bags they had shoved under the table. But Mareinskiy had left.

Rubbing his eyes once more, Palominov climbed out of his bunk and slid the door to the compartment aside. Stepping out into the narrow hallway, he looked to his left, then to his right, and proceeded in that direction toward the rear of the train car. The only compartment that wasn't closed and locked for the night was that of the car’s blue-uniformed attendant, who turned to look at Palominov with tired eyes as he passed by the room. Through the window in the door that led to the junction between the cars, he saw the hind legs and tail of a cream-colored pony.

“There he is.”

Grabbing the handle with his teeth, he pulled the door open. In an instant, the quiet train car was flooded with the roar of the wheels on the track and a burst of chilly winter air. There was Mareinskiy, still in the suit he was sporting earlier in the day, with a lit cigarette in his mouth. He turned quickly to the opened door, smiled at his friend, and then turned back to the window of the train car. Palominov stepped into the connecting junction and pulled the door closed.

“What, you still can’t sleep?” Palominov shouted over the unrelenting racket of the moving train. Mareinskiy shook his head. “You should at least try to get some rest. You’ll be worthless when we get to Canterlot if you don’t.”

“You know how it is, comrade,” Mareinskiy shouted through one side of his mouth as he held the cigarette with the other. “You need sleep so you can perform well on an occasion like this. But you’re so nervous about the whole thing, you find that you can’t sleep.” He still hadn’t turned away from the dark window. “But then again, there’s more to it this time.”

The cream-colored stallion took a final drag and let the cigarette drop to the floor. He stomped it out and turned to his friend, motioning toward the door with his head. The two earth ponies proceeded back into the hallway, where they were again greeted by the suffocating heat of the train car. Mareinskiy led the way as they walked back into their compartment and slid the door shut. The two ponies sat on their respective bunks and sat in silence for a few moments as Mareinskiy undid his cuffs with his teeth.

“I can’t believe you’re still wearing that thing. Watching you sit there in that suit is making me feel even hotter,” Palominov groaned.

“The heat’s the least of my concerns. Too much else to think about,” Mareinskiy said as he stretched himself out on the firm cushion of his bed. “When did you wake up?”

“A minute before I went looking for you.”

Mareinskiy gazed blankly up into the bottom of the empty bunk above him, gently rocking with the movement of the train as it thundered into the night. A smirk was spreading across the cream-colored stallion’s face as he continued to stare off into space. Palominov took notice, and posed his question again.

“So what’s still keeping you awake?”

Mareinskiy slowly turned to look at his friend across the small room.

“Something struck me a few hours ago, just before you went to sleep,” the recumbent stallion mumbled. “It wasn’t anything you said. But it hit me like a brick wall.”

“And what’s that?” Palominov asked, leaning toward his counterpart. Mareinskiy, as usual, was very hard to read, and the brown stallion studied him carefully with a wrinkled brow.

“Back when I was a colt,” Mareinskiy began, sitting back up, “I always played around with my brother Pavel. I’m going way back, comrade. Back when I still lived on the outskirts of Maremansk.” He laughed a little and looked down at the top of the table between the beds. “We liked to pretend to do battle as knights. It was our favorite game. We’d take oaths, swear to protect the Breiyar princes, the whole nine yards.”

“Protect the Breiyar princes?” Palominov chortled. “Imagine that. Oh, how the times have changed.” Mareinskiy laughed along with him, but continued the story.

“That was back when sticks and twigs were spears and swords. And we took it so seriously, too. We really imagined that ponies from all over the land were counting on us – that our causes were just, and that it would be a grim day if we got poked with sticks more than we poked somepony else with our sticks.” Mareinskiy snickered and looked right at his friend on the other bunk. “Pavel and I… we’d tell ourselves that we held the fate of the Equestria in our hooves.”

Mareinskiy reclined in his seat and sighed, relishing in the happy memories as Palominov leaned on the end of the table. For a moment, there was no sound in the room other than the bumps and bangs of the train wheels beneath the compartment as they continued to traverse the track. But the smile slowly faded from Mareinskiy’s face as he once again brought his widening eyes to meet those of Palominov.

“Now, fate rests in my hooves again. And in yours all the same, comrade. But we’re not playing some child’s game. No, this is real,” Mareinskiy muttered. Palominov was silent. In an instant, the jovial mood was blown away, much like the weak flame of a tiny candle in a sudden strong wind. The cream-colored stallion’s hooves were trembling a bit as he thought about what he was going to say next. What he already said had left a foul taste in his mouth. “Everypony knows it’s a matter of time before the imperials make their move. Everypony is afraid of war. And they should be. For the weapons of war aren’t the sticks and twigs we remember from childhood.”

Mareinskiy stopped talking and rested his hooves in his lap. The look on his face was vacant, for while his physical form was sitting there in the stuffy compartment, his mind was elsewhere, trapped in some strange continuum between his childhood and the present.

“And you and I… we’re on this train, bound for Canterlot,” the cream-colored stallion continued, staring at Palominov and smirking nervously, “and everypony is counting on us to stop the war before it starts. We’ve been entrusted with fate of the new Soviet society, comrade. And to tell you the truth, when I think about that, I’m absolutely terrified.”

“And what am I supposed to tell you?” Palominov asked after a few moments of silence. “I’m as nervous as you are, comrade. Of course I’m nervous. Who wouldn’t be? But there’s only so much that can be done. Of course our comrades back home are counting on us. But they can’t expect us to work miracles. They don’t expect us to work miracles. And should worse come to worse, and if war will be tomorrow-”

“Don’t say that,” Mareinsky interrupted. “I don’t even want to think about what happens if worse comes to worse. The only thing we should be thinking about is what we’re going to do to ensure that worse doesn’t come to worse.” Palominov threw up his hooves.

“At this point, how much more can we do?” he asked. “We’ve prepared our case, and tomorrow we’ll speak our piece. Nothing we think about between now and the time we set hoof on the castle grounds is going to make any difference in the long run. It’s bad enough that addressing the royals is like talking to a brick wall.”

“And that’s where I’m hoping you’re wrong,” Mareinskiy stated, thrusting his front right toward his comrade. “This isn't like  anything we’ve done before. This isn’t what went down with Saphirov. We’re not dealing with the Breiyar princes or the Empire’s royal family. We’re going right to Canterlot.”

“And this is going to be any different?”

“I think it will. Half the Party’s constituents are hard-lining anti-monarchists that have written off all the royals, regardless of whether they’re old Breiyar nobility, the Crystal Empire’s royal family, or the princesses in Canterlot. But if you ask me, I think the Canterlot royals are a cleaner breed than the others.

“They’d tear you limb from limb in the middle of the Party Congress if they heard you talking like that,” Palominov muttered as he shook his head. It wasn’t entirely a joke.

“Canterlot isn’t like the Crystal Empire,” Mareinsky insisted, leaning across the table between the beds. “Canterlot is the true authority in Equestria, and the Crystal Empire is its impudent child. Nowadays, the Empire considers itself to be Canterlot’s equal, and the imperials think they can start doing whatever they please. Now, it’s time for Canterlot to put them back in their place. And that’s exactly what they’ll do. They just need a little push before they take action.”

“And you and I will be giving the little push, I take it.”

“Yes.”

Silence overtook the room as the two stallions stared at each other from their respective beds in the stuffy compartment. Canterlot was drawing nearer with every second that ticked by.

“Fine enough,” Palominov finally said, “I'll try to believe that for now. But if we don’t get some sleep before we get to the castle, we won’t have the energy to do any pushing.” Mareinskiy could only nod in agreement as he rose from his bunk and pulled of his jacket and shirt. He put his clothes on the hangar by the wall at the foot of the bunk. Palominov reclined on his bed without bothering to pull the covers back up, watching as his friend leaned over the table and extinguished the lamp that rested by the window. The room was bathed in darkness, save for what little light was coming in through the window. Mareinskiy carefully turned and climbed back into his bunk.

A few minutes passed as the two stallions waited in the darkness as the train bounced and rocked. Palominov eventually turned toward his counterpart and broke the relative silence. There was a question he had contemplated asking earlier, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he got it off his chest.

“Gennady?” Palominov asked.

“Mmh,” mumbled the cream-colored stallion.

“When you mentioned your brother Pavel… I was wondering… Is he working for the Party in Maremansk, then?” Palominov asked. The other stallion didn’t answer immediately, and Palomiov thought he might have fallen asleep.

“No,” Mareinskiy eventually sighed. “I'm sure he wanted to join them. Pavel was there with the crowds in the streets during the Maremansk uprising. But he didn’t make it out alive.” Palominov was mortified.

“Excuse me, Gennady Sergeyevich,” Palominov stuttered. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“I don’t mind. You didn’t know."